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EPA Targets Freedom

The technical implications of the EPA’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) are not easily understood, but the threat to America’s freedom is clear.

Here is how a Wall Street Journal editorial described the CPP:

“In the name of reducing carbon emissions, the Environmental Protection Agency’s so-called Clean Power Plan, or CPP, requires states to reorganize their energy economies across electric plants, energy-intensive industries and even households.”

First, the CPP will result in large increases in the cost of electricity, that will harm families and undermine the ability of industry to compete.

Second, it threatens America’s freedom.

Every honest expert will tell you that electricity generated by wind and solar is more expensive than electricity generated by coal and natural gas power plants. Even the Energy Information Administration (EIA) publishes data showing this to be true.

Wind and solar also create huge problems for the grid, which impose additional costs not captured by the EIA’s levelized cost of electricity calculations (LCOE).

Wind and solar also threaten the grid’s reliability, potentially affecting the safety of every American. Without reliable electricity there is the threat of blackouts and even higher costs as users adopt measures to protect their businesses and information.

These are the obvious problems created by wind and solar being forced on Americans by the CPP.

But the threat to Americans of the CPP goes beyond economics and safety.

It threatens every American’s freedom.

An article by David B. Rivkin, Jr. and Andrew M. Grossman described the effects of the CPP on freedom, far better than can I, so here is what they said.

“The Clean Power Plan implicates every evil associated with unconstitutional commandeering. It dragoons states into administering federal law, irrespective of their citizens’ views. It destroys accountability, by directing the brunt of public disapproval for increased electricity costs and lost jobs onto state officials, when the federal government deserves the blame. And it subverts the horizontal separation of powers, by allowing the executive branch to act where Congress has refused to legislate.”

“One can only wonder what will be left of our constitutional order if the plan passes judicial muster.”

“The federal government would no longer be a government of limited powers, but instead be able to compel the states to do its bidding in any area. The states, in turn, would be reduced to puppets of a federal ventriloquist, carrying out the dirty work for which federal actors wish to avoid accountability. And the federal executive, in many instances, could effectively create new law by working through the states, free of the need to win over Congress.”

The constitutionality of the CPP will be decided in the courts.

The Supreme Court, immediately prior to the death of Justice Antonin Scalia, rejected the CPP, sending it back to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals for review. But this lower court has been packed with liberal justices, so there is a strong possibility they will declare the CPP constitutional. The issue will undoubtedly go before the Supreme Court again, which by then, will have received a new justice to replace Justice Scalia.

The root cause of this debacle is this administration’s determination to cut CO2 emissions 80%, in accordance with the Paris COP 21 agreement.

The issue of whether CO2 is causing global warming remains undecided. The CO2 hypothesis is being promoted primarily by politicians and the media. Opposing that view are over 31,000 scientists and engineers who have said CO2 is not the problem.

Science is not decided by consensus or the government, or by some government body or group of bureaucrats. It’s decided by facts. And the facts point elsewhere, not to CO2.

The facts are very clear. The EPA’s CPP will harm all Americans, not only by imposing higher energy costs, but by also undoing the constitution and unleashing the full force of the power of government on Americans.